Plant Breeding Institute

HC Deb 18 December 1989 vol 164 cc33-4W

Mr. Dobson

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether, in the past 10 years, he or his predecessors, either by direction or informally, secured changes in the accounting conventions followed by the Plant Breeding Institute; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Jackson

I have been asked to reply.

The Plant Breeding Institute was a registered charity and a grant-aided institute of the Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC). In 1987 its plant breeding assets were sold, and the remainder of the institute then became part of the AFRC Institute of Plant Science Research (IPSR), also a registered charity. The council's accounting convention follows Treasury rules for Government accounting, revised from time to time, which are in the public domain. The IPSR charity now finances its activities from the proceeds of the 1987 sale of assets. Although it no longer receives grant-in-aid from the AFRC, its activities are managed in line with AFRC's financial plans by virture of a memorandum of understanding established between the AFRC and the IPSR.